This article is extracted from documents which record
a talk given in March 1932 by 75 year-old William Campbell to the members of
All Saints Young People’s Club.It therefore
covers the period between 1857 and 1932 during which time Jordanhill developed
from being an agricultural and mining area into a residential suburb of
Glasgow.

The following text has been slightly edited and notes
have been added in italics within square brackets in order to clarify or update
certain statements.Most of the
photographs reproduced here appear to have been used by Mr Campbell during his
talk, but the originals are in a poor condition.

Introduction

I came to Jordanhill as a boy of six years of age,
sixty-nine years ago. At that time it was a truly rural district. It was far
from Glasgow, and to reach Glasgow one had to walk either to Partick or
Hillhead, where a bus could be joined, the cost of transit being fourpence.
Farm lands existed on both sides of Crow Road from Partick northwards and in
summertime birds nests were common on either side of the road.

Jordanhill
in the 1860’s

The name “Jordanhill” then covered a much wider area
than it does now. It included a number of scattered hamlets. There was
Claythorne, at the junction of Woodend Drive and Crow Road; farther up Crow
Road was Anniesland Toll, now Anniesland Cross. When I was a boy the toll gates
were still in position, but they were not used. Still farther up, on the left
side, was the Store Row, and there was also the Double Row.Barr & Stroud now covers that site. [and that complex has now
been replaced by the Safeway Megastore] Further away still, close to the canal, was the Blue
Row, so called from the colour of the roof tiles; and the last house in the
Blue Row was occupied as a public house, where whisky was sold at 6d and 7d per
gill, and other drinks could be consumed in unlimited quantities at equal
prices. This house was known as the “Sheep’s Public House” although I do not
know why it was so-called.

It stood so near the canal that it formed a perfect
death-trap and not a few people passed out at that place. The most melancholy
case I ever knew was that of Dr. Anderson. He was a graduate of Glasgow
University, a kindly old man, with a considerable reputation as a medical
officer. Unfortunately he was too fond of a dram, and one morning his body was
found in one of the locks.

On Anniesland Road stood the Square. This consisted, in addition to a
few dwelling houses, of the stables, joiner’s shop and blacksmith’s shop
attached to the local mines. Castlebank Laundry now occupies the site. [The laundry has
long gone, a petrol station existed for many years and the site is now occupied
by a new block of flats]
Further along the road there was a group of houses known then as now as
Anniesland, and on Knightswood Road, opposite what is now the hospital, [the hospital has now
gone and the site contains new housing] was the Red Town, two rows of houses built with handmade
bricks, and quite evidently the oldest houses in the district. All these
hamlets were inhabited by miners and others employed in the Jordanhill pits,
which were scattered here and there over the whole district. Hence the name
Jordanhill had a wide application.

In addition to the pits there were extensive brick
and tile works on both sides of Crow Road from the point where Jordanhill
Station stands today, on the right away to Gartnavel; on the left as far back
Selborne Road and on the north to Woodend Drive. I often wonder if the dwellers
in King Edward Road realise that they are sitting on top of an ironstone
pit.

No doubt industry was stimulated by the making of the
canal at the north end of the district. It had previously been built in sections
as far as Stockingfield, near Maryhill, but in 1784 the canal company obtained
a grant from the Government of money realised from the sale of lands belonging
to Prince Charlie’s followers, by which the canal was completed as far as
Bowling, and was opened for traffic on July 28th, 1790 The Bridge over the
Kelvin, this side of Maryhill, was considered a great triumph of engineering
skill. [this is the Kelvin Aqueduct situated between Cleveden Road and
Maryhill Road]It cost £8500.

Smelting and
quarrying

In 1841 Messrs. Barclay, who owned two or three pits
along the canal, erected two blast furnaces for the smelting of iron ore, at a
cost of £30,000 or £40,000 and about the same time Mr. Peters, the tenant of
Temple Farm, worked the quarrying of freestone on an extensive scale. The
furnaces and quarries gave rise to the village of Netherton. The coal in the
district did not prove suitable for the smelting of iron, and the furnaces were
then dismantled.

Jordanhill mines began at Balshagray, where the Great
Western Laundry now stands. [now the car showroom of Arnold Clark] They extended north to the boundary of
Dumbartonshire, east to the Kelvinside estate and west to Scotstoun. They
therefore covered the estates of Balshagray, Jordanhill and Scotstoun.

From the University, Glasgow Cathedral and other
records we can gain some information about the early history of these estates.

It appears that the lands from Yoker right up to
Garngad formed part of the ancient Kingdom of Strathclyde, and were owned by
the Crown. During his reign King David granted the lands from Whiteinch up to
Garngad to the Bishop and See of Glasgow. The Whiteinch Burn originated near
where Whittinghame Drive is now situated. It crossed Crow Road at Woodend Drive
then passed down King Edward Road to beyond the railway, after which it
followed the railway till it entered the Clyde between Scotstoun and Whiteinch.
[there
was a railway line from Westbrae Drive to Whiteinch along what is now the
walkway]Balshagray therefore formed part of this
grant. King David died in 1155 and was succeeded by his grandson, Malcolm.

Balshagray’s history

The first estate mentioned is Balshagray.It extended from the Clyde to the boundary
of Dunbartonshire. The origin has been disputed. “Bal” is the old Gaelic name
signifying “a town or house”, but “shagray” is a difficulty.It is spelt in various ways in the old
deeds, but that does not help us.Some
will have it that the name means “the house or town up out of the water”. Other
hold that it means “the King’s hunting town”. Still others maintain that the
word means “the priest’s town”. For two reasons the last name is the
likeliest.First, I am told that there
is a strong resemblance between “Shagray” and the old Gaelic word signifying a
“priest”. Second the name makes its first appearance in the rent roll of the
Bishop of Glasgow 1509 to 1570.It
then contained a township farm, the tenants or crofters living in the farm
town. For a considerable time there were thirty-nine of these, each tenant
holding about fifteen acres and the whole rental amounted to £6.13s.4d.It must of course be understood that the
land was mostly moorland, and poor moorland at that.

The curse that persisted

The first proprietor of Balshagray mentioned in the
records after the Reformation is Bishop Cunningham.In 1581 he ousted the Roman Catholic tenants.They met and prayed that the curse of God
might descend and rest upon him and his successors.It may only have been a coincidence, but there is no doubt that
their wrongs were amply revenged for many years. No fewer than eight successive
lairds of Balshagray came to financial ruin.I will only mention the last of these lairds.

William Crawford, owner of a ropework in Glasgow,
built the Manor House of Balshagray [Orleans Ave now stands on the
site]. He also broadened
the road leading to Dumbarton Road along which he planted two lines of trees,
thus forming Balshagray Avenue. Previously this road had been a mere cart-track.William Crawford also opened a coal mine at
Jordanhill. With all his energy he did not escape the curse, and when the
estate was put on the market it was secured by the brothers Richard and
Alexander Oswald in 1759 for the sum of £4540. To them and theirs it had proved
a good thing, and with them the curse has lost its power. The brothers Oswald
came from Thurso. They were successful Glasgow merchants, and eight years
previously they had secured the lands of Scotstoun from Mr. Crawford. The
Oswald family have always been characterised by benevolence, and they have
taken a keen interest in the religious welfare of their tenants. The Anniesland
Memorial Hall at Anniesland Cross is a standing monument of their good will [the
hall is long gone, but it stood on the site of the presentAnniesland Library]

We have had difficulty in tracing the original of the
name “Jordanhill”There is a tradition
that there had been an establishment of the Knights Templar in the district
hence the names Temple, Knightswood. and Jordanhill. For this there appears to
be no foundation, but there was a religious house at Drumry near Drumchapel.
This house held the lands of Jordanhill, and probably some passing traveller
detected some strong resemblance to some parts of the Jordan Valley and gave
the names accordingly.Drumry stands
near Drumchapel, on top of the hill after passing the gates of Garscadden
House, known locally as the Girnin’ Gates, [near where the Donald Dewar
Sports centre is today]
on the way to Duntocher and it is still interesting as forming a part of a farm
steading, the ancient Peel of Drumry, formerly the home of the Livingstones.

Sir Robert Livingstone of Drumry, Lord Treasurer for
Scotland, was executed at Edinburgh in 1447, and the last of the Livingstones
fell at Flodden Field.In 1529 the
estate passed to Laurence Crawford of Kilbirnie, who had also acquired the
lands of Jordanhill, and he endowed a chapel at Drumry with the “£5 lands of
Jordanhill”. It is said that he founded the Chaplainry, but it seems to have
been in existence before 1475.

Thomas Crawford, his son, bought back Jordanhill from
the Chaplain of Drumry and the original house of Jordanhill was built by
him.This Thomas Crawford was Provost
of Glasgow and during his term of office he rebuilt or improved the bridge over
the Kelvin at Bridge Street, Partick [the
bridge existed until 1895 and Bridge Street is now known as Benalder Street].He was also a good soldier, and a good friend of Lord Darnley, and did
good service in taking Dumbarton Castle for Regent Moray.This was very dangerous work and was
accomplished by night with scaling ladders.I often wonder how many, if any, of the Jordanhill men accompanied him.

In 1750 Jordanhill was sold. to Alexander Houston of
Glasgow who, fifty years later, in 1800, sold it to Archibald Smith, West
Indian merchant and Dean of Guild. He
was the younger son of James Smith of Craigend Castle near Milngavie.Mr. Archibald Smith died in 1821, and at
his death the estate passed. to his son, James, who did good. work as an
architect.He was also an earnest
student of geology.In his rambles
among the mines and brickworks he was frequently accompanied by the then Duke
of Argyll, and I have often heard old miners tell how greatly amused they were
to see the two old men with tall hats and long black coats daubling and.
howking in the bings and surrounding clay beds.

James Smith
published several works.I have seen
two:Studies in Tertiary Geology and
The Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul.One of his daughters was Jane Charlotte of whom I shall have a little to
say later on.He died. in 1867.

Early
Housing in Jordanhill

People nowadays have no conception of the houses
of the Jordanhill miners in 1865. We read that in 1767 a blacksmith’s house
which stood near where Anniesland. Cross now is, was built of divots and
bog-oak gathered from the Muir of Balshagray. The house in which I lived in
1865 was stone-built with a thatched roof; but most of the houses had tile
roofs. Some of them were actually disused weigh-houses attached. to the pits,
which were rigged up for dwelling purposes. Some of them had no ceilings.One could lie in bed and, through the
opening in the tiles, watch the stars overhead; while it was not uncommon in
wintertime for snow to come sweeping through the roof. The houses were all of
the one apartment type, and earth floors were common except in cases where the
miner himself had put in wood boards or brick.

The interiors varied very much with the habits of the
housewife.If she were lazy and dirty
there was ample evidence of it;if she
were thrifty and clean the reverse was the case.

There were two houses I used to go into in Double
Row.One was Old Matties and I think I
see her nowwith her white goffered
mutch and tartan shoulder shawl.She
was the proud possessor of a grandfather clock, a chest of drawers and a
dresser with a plate rack.The walls
were covered with little odds and ends to such an extent as to suggest a toy
shop, while the earth floor was carefully sanded, and everything was spotlessly
clean.Beside the fire there was a
tasty bite ready for her two boys when they came home from the pit.

Kirsty who lived next door was different.Her furniture consisted of a stool or
two.On the earth floor there were
pools of water in which the boys sailed blocks of wood.Many a morning I have gone into find her three boys sitting round a basin
of brose, each with a spoon, and it was a case of “devil take the hindmost”.

Water was very scarce

Sanitary arrangements were conspicuous by their
absence. Water was very scarce. There were a few springs, but in summer these
readily dried up owing to the underground workings.

I remember when Loch Katrine water was introduced..
The taps were enclosed. in a box, and water could only be had by those who
owned a key which could be obtained. at the company’s office on payment of five
shillings.My mother was the
fortunate possessor of a key.Her idea
was that water was supplied by God and she did not think twice to pass a
pailful or two after dusk to a less fortunate neighbour.

One night an old busybody caught her in the act.He threatened to report her if she did not
empty the two pails and send the neighbour away without the water.Now my mother was an impulsive highland
woman and instead of discussing the matter, she promptly dashed the contents of
the two pails over his head and shoulders and then refilled them for her
neighbour’s use.Nothing more was
heard of the matter.

In 1865 improvement set in.In that year Mr. Smith of Jordanhill built that block of houses
at Anniesland known as Craigend Houses. These houses were, with two exceptions,
of the two apartment type.This was the
beginning of a better day.Year by
year more houses were added.Compass
Cottages, Helensburgh Place and Munro Place were built adjacent to Craigend
Houses.

Compass Cottages

Incidentally I may mention that Compass Cottages were
built by means of money granted by the Government to Mr Archibald Smith, father
of the late Mr Parker Smith, for his work in connection with ships’
magnetism.Munro Place was an effort of
the miners themselves. [see web page with notes on
Compass Cottages athttp://www.wsmclean.com/shop.htm
]

The Oswald family were also busy in 1865. They built
fourteen cottages in Crow Road north of Whittinghame Drive. On account of the crosses
over the doorways the miners dubbed them “Chapel Row” but the name did not
stick. In subsequent years more cottages were added and Claythorne became quite
a village.

In 1868 the old Double Row was cleared away and
replaced by Skaterigg Square a group of twenty houses but these, together with
the Store Row, were ultimately cleared away to make room for the works of Barr
& Stroud [now the Safeway site]..

It is needless to add that all these houses were of
the two and three apartment type, mostly with sculleries attached and gas and
water laid on.Sanitary arrangements
were greatly improved and, to the credit of the miners, they were not slow to
respond to the higher type of life.

Local
education

Before 1852 the district appears to have been educationally
neglected.A class was kept in an
underground apartment of the house of the man in charge of the canal bridge. A
class was also kept in a cobbler’s house where the Hospital now stands. The
textbook was the “twopenny spell” and the children sat round the cobbler while
he was at work.

Another school existed at Muttonhole. [Scotstounhill, the site
of the former telephone exchange at the corner of Anniesland Roadand Lincoln Avenue]Possibly this was a Parish School but I cannot say.It was too far out of the district to be of
much use.

Improvement set in about 1852 when Miss Oswald of
Scotstoun granted land and assistance to the Free Kirk to erect a school where
Knightswood Hospital now stands [at the top of the hill on Knightswood Road opposite
Knightswood Secondary School]. This was known as Oswald. School. About the same time Miss Jane
Charlotte Smith, daughter of Mr. James Smith, opened. a school in a barn at
Jordanhill House, and subsequently in 1861 she built the hall in which we now
meet. [the hall at the back of All Saints Church]

This was used as a school and. also for religious
purposes. Two lady teachers were in charge but subsequently a male teacher, Mr.
Walker, was employedOther teachers
followed, but after 1884 it was discontinued as a school.

The honours between the two schools were
fairly evenly divided.The parents who
were adherents of the Free Kirk sent their children to Oswald School. Many sent
their children to the Claythorne School, [now All Saints hall] as it was called. because they were not
concerned about the religious question; and second they considered the
convenience of their children.The fees
were nominal.I was one of these
children, and I can well remember that at that time, 1863 to 1869, some came
from Knightswood, some came from Netherton, while the Double Row, Blue Row,
Anniesland, and Claythorne each supplied a contingent.I do not think I exaggerate when I say that
at timesthere would. be from 100 to
120 children in attendance.

The educational quality of Oswald School was said to
be superior to that of Claythorne School, but later experience made me doubt
that.

One thing I am today thankful for is that we in
Claythorne School were not taught the Shorter Catechism which in these days was
the standard theological work ofFree
and Established Church Schools.That
work may be all right in its way but “I hae ma doots”.I am satisfied that no child of six to
twelve years of age could possibly understand it.For a short period of time (when I visited my grandmother) I
attended a Parish School and many a cry I had over the Shorter CatechismIt was torture to me then and I am sore
about it yet.

Our work consisted of reading, writing and
arithmetic, but Miss Jane Smith took a personal interest in all the children,
and one thing she insisted on was an improvement in our manners.I have no doubt we stood in much need of
it.I recall a day when I met her on
the road and was lifting my cap in a very gingerly fashion when she encouraged
me by saying “Well done Willie, that’s right”She died of a fever she caught visiting some of the children in the Red
Town. [She
caught typhoid and died in 1864 aged 39]I have no doubt, had she lived, she would
have exercised a powerful influence for good in the district.All the school children were present at her
funeral.

We were encouraged to attend the weekly service on
Wednesday evenings and the Sunday School, but there was no attempt at
proselytising [religious conversions].The attendance at Sunday
School was poor but there was generally a fair attendance at the service.This service was conducted by Dean Reid and
often a number of children from Partick and Whiteinch were baptised - very few
from the district.But the best
service of all was the Christmas treat which was provided every year by the
Smith family.This was none of your
“genteel fancy cake concerns” but bread, butter and jam in abundance with
sweets and fruit to your heart’s content.I often think that the Christmas treats of today are tame compared with
these.But all good things come to an
end.I was eleven years of age, a good
reader, a passable writer and had knowledge of the four compound rules in
arithmetic.I was therefore withdrawn
from the school and went down the mines where I earned a shilling a day.

Coal mining
in the area

Mining had. been carried on for well over a hundred
years. It was mainly coal mining, there being at least five seams of workable
coal. These were The Main, The Wee, The Gas, The Splint and The Hurlet coal.
The first four seams were fairly exhausted, but the Hurlet coal remained, and
is untouched. still.It is thought that
it might be found at a depth of 1000 ft at Anniesland Cross. During the process
of sinking one of the coal pits one of the managers from the Airdrie district
found valuable ironstone. There were three seams of a Blackband type, which
gave a yield of 70% of iron and 25% of Clayband yielding 30%. This latter was a
duplicate seam, top and bottom stone and was known as the Garibaldi, in honour
of the Italian hero of that name. This was the deepest seam worked in the
district.

The strata dips to the northward, i.e. coming up the
Crow Road we get the outcrop of the clayband near Broomhill, but at Temple it
is 600 feet deep.

My experience as a miner began in the Clayband
seam.Before many days I realised I
had only changed my form of schooling;but in this latter my teachers consisted mostly of self and
experience.In less than a week I had
my first explosion.I had popped my head
(bearing my lamp) into a gas pocket.It was a minor affair; singed my hair, shirt, cap etc. and it taught me
how to behave in similar cases of this kind.

A coal mine’s lessons

Then I discovered a fossil.An older boy told me it was an eel converted into ironstone and
in confirmation of this he pointed out the scales, mouth and tail.But a few days later I found another with
similar markings but with branches and I knew then it was a fossilised branch
of a tree.Thus within a few days I
had practical lessons in chemistry, geology and botany.In later years I learned I had been working
in the bed of a great lake whose waters had contained iron in solution.

It is generally supposed that a miner’s life is a
poor one but I did not find it so.There is certainly a great element of danger but the miner knows that
his safety depends, to a large extent, upon himself, and he therefore develops
self-reliance and initiative to a degree that is not surpassed in any other
calling.

No doubt we come across some rough characters in the
mining world, but on the whole I find the miners agreeable, kindly and ever
ready to rush into danger to help his fellow workers.I look back upon the eleven years I spent underground as being
the happiest years of my life.It was
during this time that I became the possessor of Cassel’s Popular Educator, and
the world of knowledge opened up before me.

“Slaves” of the pit

Up to 1799 the Scottish colliers were “slaves”
attached to certain collieries and women as well as men were employed
underground.

There appears to be no doubt that the
Jordanhill miners were always free men. Among them I have been able to trace
some of the descendants of the cursing Balshagray crofters. To what extent
women were employed in the Jordanhill pits I cannot say, but there was a
tradition in the district that three women were killed by the falling-in of the
doorheads in a pit which was beside the Anniesland Road, and one old miner told
me that when he was a boy he often went down this pit by means of a stair which
had been used by the women while carrying up coals in large baskets.Personally, I knew two women who were
employed underground in their early days.

The old Jordanhill miners were a cheery lot, humorous
and. shrewd to an extraordinary degree, and much given to religious
discussions, but when I was a boy I noticed one sad feature. Few of them lived
beyond. sixty years of age. One old miner informed me that he went down the pit
at eight years of age, earned four-pence a day, and his breakfast consisted of
two slices of oatcake with a layer of boiled turnip between.Curiously enough he was an exception to the
general rule, because he lived to be over eighty years of age.

The older generation had been the victims
of the Truck System, whereby they were paid in goods instead of money. An old
Truck barrier still stands at Knightswood. Rows.[now long gone but
surprising that it was still there in 1932] After the Truck stores were made illegal, their
places were taken by shopkeepers who, in order to cover credits and bad debts,
had to charge high prices with the result that the miners were as badly, if not
worse off than before.A shopkeeper in
the Store Row became bankrupt and a few of the more intelligent miners
conceived the idea of taking his premises and starting a Co-operative store.
With the exception of the salesman, all the directors, secretary, etc. gave
their services free and in 1869 they started. the Skaterigg Co-operative
Society which proved a blessing to the district. It is now the Anniesland
Co-operative Society. {the shop stood on Crow Road just north of Great Western
Road, but long gone]

Decline of
mining

Gradually the seams became exhausted and mining in
the district slowly declined till about 1890 when it ceased altogether and most
of the miners found homes in other lands. With the decline of the mines came
the introduction of the School Boards, the speculative builder and annexation
to Glasgow. Thus Jordanhill was converted from a rural areato a suburban and city area, the name
Anniesland was substituted for Skaterigg and Claythorne, and the whole
character of the district became altered.

Of the men who influenced the district, there was
Dean Reid. [First
Priest -in-charge of All Saints 1853 till 1886] His work lay among the children who attended
Claythorne School. He visited them frequently, especially when they were
sick,and whenever he left a house he
left the impression in the household. that it had been visited by a saint. Also
there was The Rev. Mr. Munro, minister of Jordanhill United Free Church.He was a faithful pastor and a Highland
gentleman. He went in and out the people for about thirty years and never lost
an opportunity of doing good.It was
he who advised miners to build their own houses, hence Munro Place, Anniesland,
and when Jordanhill was laid out for feuing, Mr. Parker Smith honoured him by
giving his name to Munro Road.

Then lastly I mention the Rev. Mr. Brooke of All
Saints. He had been a missionary to the South Sea Islands and possessed
wonderful tact and judgement.Like Dean
Reid his work was mostly among the children of Claythorne School [Mr Brooke was the
clergyman of All Saints from 1877 till 1879].

To Mr. Munro and Mr. Brooke I owe more than I can
express. The former helped me with English and put me on a course of reading
which is not yet finished, and the latter gave me many educational hints and
such sound advice that I was able to step out of the mines when I had attained
twenty-two years of age.